Washington DC – The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) today congratulated the leaders of the nine Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) nations for successfully agreeing on a broad outline of the plurilateral trade pact. The NFTC released the following statement:

"We applaud the leaders of each of the nine TPP partner countries for working together to achieve a broad outline of the agreement, and we especially congratulate President Obama and the entire U.S. negotiating team for their leadership in building momentum and consensus during the past nine rounds of negotiations," said NFTC President Bill Reinsch. "The TPP has the potential to become an economically and historically significant trade agreement, and the framework developed by the leaders of the TPP nations affirms their commitment to a high-quality agreement reflective of the realities of the 21st century global economy."

"The broad outline developed in Honolulu signals the leaders' collective commitment to concluding an agreement that will create meaningful and comprehensive economic integration across the Asia-Pacific region, including a significant expansion of market access, covering all goods and services, and a common set of rules of origin and investment packages covering all sectors," Reinsch added.

"The NFTC and our member companies believe that the TPP has the potential to become the ‘gold standard' and a model for other 21st century, plurilateral trade agreements, and the broad outline agreed to by the leaders reflects the promise the agreement holds," said NFTC Vice President for Regional Trade Issues Chuck Dittrich. "The outline confirms consensus among the nations to create a forward-looking and ambitious trade platform that breaks ground on new disciplines to reflect rapidly evolving technologies, business models and cross-cutting issues promoting regulatory coherence, competitiveness and economic integration to nurture and facilitate regional supply chains and easier market entry for small- and medium-sized businesses."

"We recognize that this outline is but one step in a long process to successfully conclude the negotiations, and the hard work and the most trying negotiations are yet to come. We urge negotiators to resist and stand against efforts to dilute commitments, carve out exceptions and limit market access," Reinsch continued. "The achievement of a high-quality agreement, as outlined by the leaders, can come to fruition, but only if all countries redouble their efforts to increase the level of ambition and force breakthrough decisions that uphold the promises made as soon as possible."

About the NFTCAdvancing Global Commerce for Nearly A Century- The National Foreign Trade Council (www.nftc.org) is a leading business organization advocating an open, rules-based global trading system. Founded in 1914 by a broad-based group of American companies, the NFTC now serves hundreds of member companies through its offices in Washington and New York. Follow us on: